Abstract

The high prevalence of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) demonstrated in the last decades in the child and adult population carried us to examine how best we can identify cases of ADHD from the general population. In doing so, we note that different methodologies are used for obtaining data, as well as different diagnostic criteria. An additional finding of considerable interest for this line of reasoning is the medicalization of ADHD. Our assumption is that this tendency for prescribing certain medications is caused by the relentless pressure of pharmaceutical companies and not only as a result of clinical judgment.